Courage to stop cutting comes from within

A habit is a regular tendency or practice that is especially hard to give up.

My bad habit that I stopped was cutting. I was addicted to my habit.

I had a serious problem, not like nail biting or smoking cigarettes, but something that I would resort to as an outlet. It was something that I considered an expression at the time.

I was 13 when I started self-harming, and by self-harming I mean cutting. I resorted to this whenever I was angry, wanted to kill time, wanted my inside insecurities and hatred for myself to match the outside.

I remember telling myself and anyone close to me, "Its not an addiction. I can stop whenever I feel like it."

Exactly what an addict would say. I didn't stop fully until I was 15 years old, during my sophomore year at Reading High.

It went from being off and on to something I found out that no therapist or best friend could help me with. Turns out, self-harm is something I just needed self-help with. I'm not saying everyone is the same.

Anyone can argue with this, but cutting was like my heroin. Getting clean meant I could go back at any time. And trying to explain to anyone how much of a dark place I was in is like trying to explain physics to someone who never took the class.

I had pushes to stop, I had friends, I had family. I had people who loved me. But no matter how hard I would try to acknowledge that fact, it still felt like no one cared.

Stopping a habit is simple from the outside looking in, because what's a pebble in a shoe to one person is a boulder in someone else's life. Even the simple things can be complex, which is why the off-and-on occurred when I was 14.

My family tried taking away my razors, giving pep talks. But it just really was not that simple. After years of ugly wounds and scars, I began to lose interest in harming myself, I started writing more, singing more, living more. And not letting my habit/addiction rule my life. Because there are other ways to cope with things.

If I could go back in time to 13-year-old me, when I first started, I would tell myself that it's not worth it.

Of course, the 13-year-old me would respond, "I'm not cutting because I hate myself. I'm cutting so I can someday love myself again."

Crazy way to think, but my habit made me stronger. It made me love myself.